Vineet Jain is the co-founder and CEO of Egnyte, a content collaboration and security platform for mid-market and enterprise businesses. When he launched in 2007, analysts counted hundreds of competitors - Box, Dropbox, and dozens more - all giving product away for free and raising billions. Vineet did the opposite. No freemium. No free tier. He charged enterprise customers from day one. His board pushed back. Analysts questioned the strategy. Competitors raised 10x more capital. It took 12 years to reach $100M. Then just 3 more to hit $200M. And 1.5 to cross $300M. Egnyte now has 23,000 customers, 1,400 employees, and has raised just $137.5M - with no additional funding since 2018. š KEY LESSONS š¢ The No-Freemium Gamble: Egnyte refused free tiers in a market where every competitor gave product away. Charging from day one meant slower growth but a sustainable business on just $137.5M raised while competitors burned through billions. š° The $6,000 Pipeline: Vineet built Egnyte's first sales pipeline with $6,000 in SEM ads. That same systematic approach now drives millions per quarter, with 60% of pipeline still managed through inside sales. šÆ The Fortune 86 Visit: A Fortune 86 company showed up at Egnyte's office when they had 12 employees. Enterprise certifications and compliance capabilities made a tiny team credible enough to win - and keep - the deal. š The Failure That Shaped Everything: Vineet's first startup Valdero raised $7.5M from Kleiner Perkins, then got crushed by Oracle and SAP. That taught him to build capabilities giants cannot easily replicate. š ļø The Hybrid Cloud Bet: Vineet bet on hybrid when the market said go cloud-only. For construction sites needing LAN-speed access to 65,000-page design files, pure cloud fails - and 30% of Egnyte customers use hybrid today. ā±ļø TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Introduction 00:27 What Egnyte does and company overview 02:44 Revenue milestones - $100M in 12 years, $300M in under 5 more 03:18 Total funding of $137.5M and no raise since 2018 04:01 Arriving in the US with $100 and no connections 05:30 Building a network from scratch through KPMG 06:43 Pitching Vinod Khosla at Kleiner Perkins for first startup 07:30 Valdero - first startup that raised $7.5M and failed 08:29 Why the Valdero exit felt like a failure 09:33 Oracle and SAP crushing the supply chain market 10:28 Starting Egnyte with 4 co-founders and no funding 12:09 Going enterprise-only when everyone said do freemium 13:42 The hybrid cloud bet - CloudNotEnough 16:04 Gartner Magic Quadrant recognition in 2016 17:02 Why the hybrid approach resonated with enterprise customers 20:09 Landing the first enterprise customers with $6K in SEM 24:31 A Fortune 86 company visiting a 12-person startup 26:14 Why employees come first, not customers 30:16 Consensus is the shortest path to mediocrity 34:14 The biggest hiring mistake - holding on too long 36:24 AI strategy and the Egnyte Copilot launch 40:34 Why AI won't replace enterprise software humans 42:00 Lightning round š§° RESOURCES š Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: https://saasclub.io/email š” Join the SaaS Club founder community: https://saasclub.co/plus š Build your $10K MRR SaaS: https://saasclub.io/launch š Scale from 6-figures to $1M ARR Faster: https://saasclub.io/mastermind šÆ Get 1:1 async coaching from Omer: https://saasclub.io/accelerate š§ Full Show Notes: https://saasclub.io/472 š¤ Subscribe to the Podcast: https://saasclub.io/subscribe #SaaS #EnterpriseSales #B2BSaaS #FounderStory #StartupAdvice